CS bosses drag their feet over PAC feedback
(CNS): Auditor General Sue Winspear has raised concerns that senior civil servants are falling behind when it comes to responding to Public Accounts Committee reports. While she noted improvements in implementing past recommendations made by PAC, based on reports from her office, she warned that the failure to produce a formal response to the committee undermines the accountability process.
There are currently seven outstanding reports from PAC dealing with a number of controversial areas, such as OfReg and the court system, where the auditor had found wasted public money and bad management controls.
“I am concerned that the civil service continues to fall further behind in responding to PAC reports,” she said, following the publication of a new report from her office following up on various past reports. “Reporting back on progress with the implementation of recommendations is a fundamental part of the accountability process. The delays in responding to the PAC undermine this process.”
In her audit on how well the government is doing in reacting and responding to the past audits and subsequent PAC reports on how public money is spent and managed, Winspear said civil servants have made good progress in some areas.
She said they had taken on board PAC’s advice on three reports from 2020, including government’s use of consultants and temporary staff, outsourced services, and fighting corruption. The Office of the Auditor General and PAC had made a total of 61 recommendations in these reports. and three-quarters of them were in the process of being rolled out or had already been implemented.
But she noted some areas where government has not yet rolled out some important changes. Winspear said that in relation to the 2018 report, “Government’s use of Consultants and Temporary staff“, there were still no policies or procedures in place for the extension of contracts, even as a number of high-value contracts continue to be extended.
She also explained that no government minutes, the official response to PAC for these specific reports, have been tabled in Parliament. Winspear said the minutes were missing for many other reports as well, and where minutes were published, they were sometimes months, even years, late.
See the latest OAG report in the CNS Library.
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Category: Government Administration, Government oversight, Politics
You can blame Deputy Governor all you want but he has little say or no say over the two entities mentioned or In question. OfReg which is a Statutory authority and the other is under or so called Independent Judiciary! The Lodge has run OfReg from its inception and appointed and has given jobs fo the Boyz, who are always spendthrifts and blew its overinflated budget out along time ago on lavish trips and fancy titles and their consigliere’s oops consultants who are tight or connect to their friends and with its directors. So much so that the last Ring bearer now running around Dubai in Sir Alden’s International globetrotting Syndicate which it appears new comer Minister André Ebanks is powerless to stop hemorrhaging or fleecing our economy because the new protected by the premier very dubious DG designate is still running or Ghosting him and this fool fool leviathan,hoping to revive it when and as soon the new ppm take back power from the pact nightmare gowerment . Like Hannibal from the 80’s sitcom ATeam says I love it when a plan comes together! The new Caribbean director and his underlings are too busy protecting the foreign interest controlling our Electricity , fuel and telecommunications conglomerates monopolies in Cayman they simply have no time to write Audit reports to account for their spending aaaaah humbug this white woman asking too much questions ! As for the Courts behemoth it’s no better but you have to exercise extreme caution because you are not allowed to criticise our judiciary run by the CJ who is Lord and master of Cayman’s judicial domain. His worship needs to carry out a proper vetting of judicial employees background or past misdealings and that might help them get to the bottom of these missing Audit Reports which some are hoping to go away by dragging their feet ! Thank you ever so much AG Sue Winspear and team for giving us hope and highlighting these things about our government’s misconduct which for years Has been going but kept secret from the public .Corruption has never been Compulsory Cayman. But we now how it goes round here .
Friggin outstanding Cayman jurisprudence! Thank you CNS for the posting it the real state of affairs in Cayman. I hope Governor Roper takes note of all that this poster has outlined in this post
Thank you Covid. It was getting harder and harder to blame our screw ups on Hurricane Ivan. We should be good for excuses for another few years now.
There is a solution to all of this nonchalant attitude. Implement dead
Ines and if they are not followed people will be fired. Really tired of hearing the same old evergreen comments from the Auditir General which generally speaking could be cut and pasted from prior year reports.
If the Deput y Governor can’t put fire under the back sides of those responsible, appoint a governance team with the necessary authority to kick butts.
Franz is part of the problem. He reports to no one. Not even the electorate. His standards and expectations are far too low.
Basically the issue continues to be a far too comfortable Franz Manderson. The remedy is actually pretty simple. He should be served with a do-or-die performance deadline, to which he can either (a) perform as required, (b) tender resignation, or (c) be fired and stripped of his MBE. We need to feel confident we can either resolve the well-known workflow problems, or remove and replace the obstacles in the path of our money. ie. Prudence.
She’s being culturally insensitive.
The buck stops with Deputy Governor Franz Manderson
This is his vision of a world class civil service
Is it any wonder why the Caymans are always ping ponging between the gray and black lists?
Good public servants like AuGen Winspear will lose heart and find somewhere else where their work actually means something. Cayman’s public service has a way to get rid of the grass and allow the weeds to thrive!
There’s no accountability and Franz Manderson, Gloria McField- Nixon and the CO’s under them are a waste of public funds! Inept freeloaders!
That good public servant who passed on Caymanian applications to hire a friend from Canada IN Canada?
19 @ 8:13 am – You know any qualified and capable Caymanians who could handle the job of AuGen and moreso, WOULD do it transparently and impartially?
I know a few but some aren’t considered because they’re foreign-born Caymanians, other Cayman-born possibilities aren’t interested in tarnishing their good reputation and pissing into the wind!!
I’d live the see the list of Caymanians which you allege was passed over. Probably all grand-standing faux-professional clowns like a certain Minister!
Sign me: Skeptical and Very Jaded born-Caymanian who has known Cayman in better times!
Irrelevant. I think the allegation is that no extensive attempt was made to recruit anyone locally, and the role outsourced to a friend in another jurisdiction. I do not think the Auditor General had anything to do with this.
Thank goodness the faux professional minister did not get the job.
He is more interested in promoting his own kind in preparation for turning us into Jamaica.
Yup. But not Sue.
Who is in charge of these entities? There needs to be some accountability and it needs to start at the top.
another glorious day for our world-class civil service!
time for more awards franzie!
Respond to AG recommendations or keep Cayman safe from COVID-19?
If you are reading this you know what was the priority.
Everbody else can multi-task for less time and money!
Speak for yourself, we get raises when everyone else is getting job loss notices.
And who pays your salaries?
And yet Doctors Hospital, Shetty, and countless other private medical practices all managed to renew their licenses and work permits without fail, on time, while actually working at least as hard and effectively to help save Cayman from Covid.
3:06 franzie and his team was busy keeping you safe dummy.
So in the last year the civil service, delivered a world class election, welcomed a new Government, successfully developed a world class reopening plan, fought covid-19, increased online services.
Failed to get back to the AG in a timely manner.
I am not going to complain.
Is this sarcasm, otherwise I’m at a loss to explain your comment.
C’mon Now! – Has humor disappeared, WTF? 4:37 pm is being sarcastic!
LOLOLOL
Covid, whaa whaa whaa. Oh, and Ivan.
Mrs Winspear better keep an eye out for new boards getting pay raises and forming unnecessary sub -committees to increase their stipends.
But then, you can’t be real UDP unless you take advantage of the system.
You touched on a real issue here, there are Board members currently making close to $100K per annum just to attend monthly meetings at Statutory Authorities. They eat a free lunch, contribute next to nothing toward the running of the organization, and get their pay transferred every month while still holding private sector employment. I guess the people get the Government they deserve.
Sue should file a complaint as to the various department’s lack of action with the Ombudsman. Then she can truly sit and watch nothing happen slowly. The civil service is being allowed to destroy Cayman. Unless decisive meaningful action is taken soon, it will bankrupt us all. I am grateful to our Auditor General for her efforts, but fear they are in vain. The rot has truly set in.
CNS-love the pic! 🙂
What’s new?!
Pussycat?
Whoa whoa whoaaaa.
Nuttin’s new. Same old tune. Nothing ever changes. Just the propensity of the civil service to waste public funds and consume the viability of our country grows louder.
Pump up the volume Franz. May as well go for broke and call it a day. Then we can join the rest of our region and blame European colonists for all that ails us.
Idjits. We almost had it sooo good.